Demons of the Mind

We’re kicking off the 1970s and British Hammer Films is trying to get in step with the times by abandoning the typically Gothic settings that had often characterized their earlier works and focusing heavily on the erotic realm instead. Peter Sykes, assisted by splendid cinematography, skillfully directs a film that, after a somewhat muted start, gradually becomes more engaging, leading to a simultaneously tragic and ambiguous conclusion.

Digging deeper, “Demons of the Mind” is basically a turbid and portentous drama disguised as a horror film where everything revolves around mental illness. It’s interesting to note how this core element takes on differing meanings depending on the individual characters’ point of view. We go from the metaphysical beliefs of Baron Zorn, convinced that a curse lingers over his bloodline, to the pseudo-psychoanalytic conjectures of the eccentric Dr. Falkenberg, played by the legendary Patrick Magee, with his talk about “dreams of sexual fear suppressed through guilt” and “He did what your fears and dreams made you want to do, but which your conscience mind could not do. They’re extensions of your being in some grotesque way“). Finally, we have the post-Enlightenment rationalism of Dr. Richter, the “official” spokesman of the medical-scientific community of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

The Church isn’t spared its share of caustic barbs, with its representative portrayed as a fanatic priest whose mad gibbering incites the “sheeple” to form a lynch mob to fight evil.